Back in August 2016 during the crisis in the British Labour Party post-Brexit, in a post on the theme of turning the party into a social movement, Richard wrote this:

“The category of ‘social movement’ describes a series of outcomes, so it would be useful to think about the processes of which they are outcomes. Only in that way can we break with the reification, and then realistically think about the conditions for both effective mobilisation and success. So I would propose the following as premises:

i. The most basic social unit is not the individual, which is merely a politico-juridical effect of power relations, but the relation. Nothing social happens until there is a relationship (be it political, ideological or economic) between at least two types of agent.

ii. These relations are organised within a particular mode of production, which assigns agents within them particular capacities and powers, depending on their dominance or subjugation.

iii. The dominant relations in a given mode of production, insofar as it is characterised by exploitation, are antagonistic, thus leaving the social field cross-sected by struggles.

iv. The mode of production is never fully ‘realised’. It is always only realised to an extent within an open, complex and generative structure-in-difference, or social formation. It is the social formation in a given conjuncture, not the mode of production, that is the terrain of action of social forces.

v. For relations to persist, they must be reproduced, and thus the manner of their reproduction, as well as the productive forces available to them to continue doing so, is decisive.

These premises stress a processual perspective, and it in that perspective that we can start to locate the social movement. First of all, we can say that a condition for the emergence of a social movement is that the reproduction of a given social relationship has been put into question. Thus, a movement will be concerned with the conservation, disruption, reform, abolition or expanded reproduction of a set of social relations. That allows us to broadly comprehend the character of social movements (as reactionary, conservative, reformist, revolutionary, etc). A second condition for the emergence of a social movement is that social groups who are in an antagonistic relationship with one another come into direct (though overdetermined) conflict.

In addition, and given that the reproduction of a social relation is necessarily a political issue, a third condition is that the emerging combatants must have some reference to political power – that is the state – the nature of which is structured by the differential access of classes and social groups to the state and the opportunities for mobilisation it provides. A fourth is that, given the overdetermination of political struggles, the participants in the conflict extend beyond those directly involved in the antagonistic relationship in question, and draws into movement those who have heterogeneous interests and ideologies. This necessitates what Gramsci termed a ‘system of alliances’ governed by a shared structure of meaning (sometimes called ‘framing’) which may extend well beyond the specific politicality of the movement and even involve a richly complex ‘way of life’ or several (like cooperativism, unionism, membership of military clubs, ‘Klankraft’, etc).

The specific social capacities arising from social relations whose reproduction has been put into question must be activated in that conflict – this is the fifth condition. These can be class capacities, endowed by one’s place in the relations of production (capitalists enjoy control of markets, workers enjoy collective strength, etc) but one can also speak more generally (following Piven and Cloward) of ‘disruptive capacities’ which follow from one’s ability to withdraw one’s contribution to the reproduction of society. Since these capacities are distributed unevenly, and formed in relation to different identities and ways of life, the specific organisation of these capacities is subordinate to the political and ideological aspects of coalition forming.

Finally, these social capacities can only be convoked in particular spatial contexts (say, big urban settings) in which economic, political and ideological relations are concentrated. As Manuel Castells wrote, the segmentation of social and political space is a way of organising production relations, consumption patterns, sociality, social reproduction, and so on. That is to say, there is necessarily a territoriality to the action of social movements, which structures their options and prospects. They make a claim to the ‘national’ space, but they operate only within definite enclaves.

Moment’s of “back to first principles” clarity like this are a precious. They are also thought-provoking. How do I feel about the idea of the “social field” in point iii. and the “social formation” as a “structure-in-difference” under point iv? But when you start with Brexit and end up by asking yourself that kind of question, you know someone has added light to your morning.

I’ve long found this leftist jargon impossibly vague. It tends to rest on assertions the epistemological and ontological status of which are never made clear. DUe to the fact that it is not made clear I’m not convinced that those that are using the jargon are actually referring to any actual object. Take this — upon which the whole passage rests:

“The most basic social unit is not the individual, which is merely a politico-juridical effect of power relations, but the relation.”

What is the status of this statement? Is it contingently theoretical? Is it dogmatic? Is it legal? Is it a philosophy of mind statement? Because depending on which it is you would draw very different conclusions from the passage. Take them in turn.

1. Contingently theoretical: Here we would say “Let’s assume for the sake of argument that…. and see what we may generate of interest out of this framework when it is applied to empirical material”.

2. Dogmatic: This would assume this to be an actual Object Truth. An Essential Property of Man. This has huge moral implications. For example, it would instantly dehumanise any human individual and make their essence wholly contingent on the group. The moral implications of that could be… rather violent, let’s just say.

3. Legal: If this is a legal statement it is simply false. Western legal canons recognise individuals first and legal relations second. So, from a legal perspective this statement would be incorrect.

4. Philosophy of Mind: This would be implying something about how a person’s unique sense of individuality is formed. It would imply an extreme social constructivist point-of-view. If individuality is wholly contingent on the group or on legal power relations then biology, for example, is moot.

This is not simple nitpicking. I claim that the above passage actually has no meaning unless it is specified what this first statement actually means. Rather it is a bunch of floating signifiers with no firm reference. Different people will read different things into it. Due to the clear English it gives off the sense that something clear is being stated. But on second examination it actually comes off as the sort of jargon that Orwell decried in his ‘Politics and the English Language’.

Perhaps the left bicker and fight so much because they use an amazingly vague language and then seem surprised when they are unable to clearly communicate with one another. Just a thought.

Adam — this is a really generous note, very much appreciated. You may have already gathered, but the ‘structure-in-difference’ motif is adapted from Stuart Hall.

P — Thanks for your thoughts on this. If it’s useful, I’m happy to try to orient you in regard to the argument (it might be helpful to others as well).

These “premises” which I offer are closer to what you describe as “contingently theoretical” than any of your other categories. The blog post being quoted here decants a few ideas from my PhD research on anticommunism, Massive Resistance and Civil Rights, without going into too much detail about the theoretical background — because I wanted the argument to be accessible to readers of my blog. (You can read the thesis online if it interests you: http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3355/)

In that research, I adopt an historical materialist ontology and a critical-realist epistemology. The specific kinds of historical materialism I’m interested are various and there’s a degree of theoretical eclecticism in the work, but the opening “premise” which you find vague and/or worrisome derives from the philosophical work of Althusser and the political scientific work of Poulantzas. Both of these authors, in different ways, hold that marxism is a theoretical antihumanism, which is to say that none of its explanatory criteria depend on the idea that humanity has any necessary, fixed, or essential properties which determine the forms and relations of any society. Poulantzas thus argued that the individual arises not from the very real differences between bodies (although it was in fact imbricated with emerging scientific discourses about biological difference), but from a number of social processes which could be crudely enumerated as follows: i) the uprooting of serfs etc from the land and legal bondage; ii) the ‘effect of isolation’ on agents produced by competition within a capitalist mode of production; and iii) the political-legal constitution of these agents as individuals/subjects. From that point of view, Western jurisprudence mystifies what it actually does; by presuming the individual as the premise for its action, it produces the individual.

I *could* restate the first “premise” as a dogma. For example: it is an essential property of ‘man’ (or ‘humanity’) not to have ‘individuality’ as an essential property. Or even, it is an essential property of ‘humanity’ not to have any essential properties. But my actual view is something more like this: I don’t think there is any good reason to believe that humanity has any properties that are not contingent on and relative to the state of historical development, technology, and so on. I also don’t think there is any good reason to believe that the modern idea of the ‘individual’, cf the founding dogma of liberal political theory, has any practical meaning outside of political and juridical relations. You could call this point of view ‘dehumanising’, but only in a circular fashion: that is, you would have to assume that ‘individuality’ in this sense is an essential property of being human, the very claim that is contested.

All of this, I suspect, only opens up further questions — the cliched can of worms. But I hope it’s at least useful to at least situating the argument, even if it doesn’t necessarily make it more convincing or ‘clear’.

One aside: I’m slightly confused by the invocation of Orwell’s essay in this context. I don’t think Orwell had social-scientific writing in mind. None of his examples point to it. Even if he did, your worry seems to be that in this blog post I write deceptively ‘clearly’, and thus cover up theoretical opacity. Isn’t that exactly what Orwell does in his (frankly rather eccentric) essay? What should one make of the claim that ‘foreign words and expressions’ like ‘status quo’; or non-Anglo Saxon words like ‘predict’, ‘clandestine’, ‘expedite’; or ‘pretentious diction’ like ‘basic’, ‘primary’, or ‘categorical’ should be avoided? Upon what grounds should we always cut words where possible? Why should such matters of parochial taste be accorded law-like dignity? One could add other queries — such as, what would it mean (outside of a Scientological pamphlet) to ‘think wordlessly’? While Orwell’s essay is written very ‘cleanly’, in a way that appears natural and unforced, what is ‘clear’ about his claims? Isn’t there something very odd about the fact that this essay has become so canonical?